Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

from the talk-amongst-yourselves dept

This week, we wrote about the ongoing plague of skewed priorities among law enforcement agencies when it comes to bodycam footage. That One Guy latched on to a particular detail and racked up the votes for most insightful comment of the week:

"I don't get it, why don't the people we beat and shoot respect us?"

Officer Mader was fired. The other cop was praised. According to the department, Mader "put two other officers in danger" by not immediately killing the suicidal man.

Not immediately killing someone who might be a danger is 'putting [people] in danger'. In pretty much any other profession that sort of mindset would get you arrested as a threat to those around you and subjected to extensive psychological counseling, yet for police it's just another day on the job, a job that apparently is not intended to have any risk whatsoever if methods up to and including murdering someone is considered acceptable to eliminate the potential for risk.

The cherry on top of that disgusting cake of course is that the scum who shot the man called the one who was willing to risk being shot by talking to the man a 'coward' afterwards. Because apparently in his warped mind it takes courage to gun someone down and cowardice to not pull the trigger. Stories like this make the 'The bad cops are a minority' narrative even more of a joke than it already was. Two entire departments were involved in these two cases, either directly or indirectly, with the only ones punished being the ones I would consider 'good cops'.

In second place on the insightful side, we've got a comment from Vidiot in response to Sen. Tom Cotton's attempt to permanently renew section 702:

"... a bill that would ensure this discussion is never raised again."

And virtually every day, we get to watch the effects of legislation and rulemaking that is carved in stone, never to be revisited to accommodate new environments, shifting contexts or even radical changes in underlying technologies.

How's that been working out?

For editor's choice on the insightful side, we start out with a response from Ninja to Theresa May's attempt to blame the internet for the London Bridge attack:

"We cannot allow this ideology the safe space it needs to breed - yet that is precisely what the internet, and the big companies that provide internet-based services provide,"

Really? Does the Internet allow for pro-democracy, good things to spread as well? How much of the traffic is devoted to promoting perceived bad things versus good things? And how much of that traffic you consider bad just because you don't like it?

"We need to work with allies democratic governments to reach international agreements to regulate cyberspace to prevent the spread of extremist and terrorism planning."

What would be classified as terrorism to you? Some people fed up by repeatedly pointing government abuse that start breaking things to be heard? People planning massive protests against some governmental action or policy? Journalists helping people leak government secrets that are evidence of sever abuse?

We could be complacent on the old lady for not knowing the internet but we all know this isn't about solving the problem. Terrorism is an awesome scapegoat to justify inserting authoritarian measures. The UK is using it like crazy to implement Orwell/V officially.

Next, we've got a response to a specific mention we made of the Berne Convention as something often invoked by people who don't understand copyright law but assume it forbids things they don't like, to which Christenson had an notable rejoinder:

What about those of us that *know* the Berne convention forbids stuff we don't like...like short copyright terms??

Over on the funny side, our first place winner is TechDescartes with a response to Drake's victory in a music sampling lawsuit:

The Irony is Delicious

The Drake song uses a large chunk of the Jimmy Smith Rap unchanged... but does make a few small edits, including changing Smith from saying "Jazz is the only real music that's gonna last..." to just saying "Only real music's gonna last..." Apparently the Jimmy Smith estate wasn't too happy with the changed meaning.

While it remains to be seen whether Drake's music lasts, there is a certain irony in the "Jimmy Smith Rap" having continuing value only because of Drake using it in a non-jazz song.

In second place, we've got a quip from wshuff in response to Europe's potential dark copyright future:

And once implemented, the Internet ground to a halt, people returned to the card catalog to find information, and finally, Big Library got what they'd be wanting all along.

For editor's choice on the funny side, we start out with a fresh entry in the running "countdown" joke about how long it takes to crack DRM. Roger Strong was inspired by the latest super-fast crack and played with the format a bit:

Gamer: Zero.

Reporter: "Ten what? Ten months? Ten weeks?"

Gamer: Two.

Reporter: "How long do you think it'll take to crack this DRM?"

Gamer: Dammit, they've broken temporal causality.

Reporter: How do they get two million triggers while denying performance issues?

And, finally, we've got a comment from NumberLord on the latest strange instalment in the monkey selfie case:

This is easily the worst of the Planet of the Apes sequels.

That's all for this week, folks!

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